


Running In Counterpoint

by Anonymous



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Adventures in Outer Space, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/F, Minor Canon-Typical Violence, Saving the World, Time Agents, Timey-Wimey
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-12
Updated: 2021-03-12
Packaged: 2021-03-17 02:59:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,834
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29093121
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: "I've got the whole universe to see. Planets to save, civilizations to rescue, creatures to defeat... and an awful lot of running to do!"Jenny finds herself with a bucket list, a girlfriend, and a mission. Not necessarily in that order.
Relationships: Jenny (Doctor Who: The Doctor's Daughter)/Original Female Character
Comments: 1
Kudos: 1
Collections: Five Figure Fanwork Exchange 2020





	Running In Counterpoint

**Author's Note:**

  * For [nowrunalong](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nowrunalong/gifts).



The warning light finally turned on just as Jenny passed through the stratosphere.

“Oh, that’s helpful,” she muttered to herself as she continued flicking switches and pressing buttons. The shrill sound of the alarm only continued to increase in volume no matter what she pressed and her ship noticeably continued to pick up speed now that there were clouds whipping past it.

With a sigh, Jenny checked her helmet was secured and reached behind her to rummage around for the right lever. Quickly checking her buckles were all fastened, she took a deep breath and pulled. There was a faint clicking noise, then nothing. Frowning, she returned the lever to its original position and pulled it again.

“Come on,” she muttered, finally looking through the viewing shield at the planet below with faint concern. The ground was beginning to get awfully close… but before she could panic, she heard the clicking sound again followed by a whining suction noise and a violent rush of air.

Jenny whooped as her seat was jettisoned, spinning, out into empty sky. She regretted it when her suit life support system kicked in a split-second later and she had no lungful of breath to ease the transition between different artificial air environments. Still, Jenny managed to keep her eyes fixed on her falling ship as she coughed and spun, watching as cargo crate after cargo crate was jettisoned behind it, tiny little parachutes popping out automatically above them once they were clear of the ship’s spiralling trajectory.

“Three, four, five,” she counted as she spun. “Six, yes!”

Information raced across the digital screen in her helmet, telling her how high she was and the speed she was falling at, but she only kept half an eye on it as she unfastened herself from the now useless seat and let it fall away. Her suit’s system was entirely separate from the ship she’d commandeered for the last leg of her journey. She could trust the autopilot in it to guide her down safely.

Instead she focused her attention on the approaching landscape, trying to guess the trajectories each piece of cargo was likely to take and also keep an eye on the dark blue one - the most crucial. All the others would have been useful but weren’t strictly necessary. She’d put the most important technology in the blue crate and even if that was the only one she could locate on the ground, that would be okay. Jenny would still have a shot at completing her mission.

With a flick of her fingers across the console embedded in the forearm of her suit, she opened a small vent on the side of her life support system for the briefest of moments. It was just enough to adjust her descent without compromising her oxygen supply. She wouldn’t land with the box, but it should be reasonably close by. At least, she hoped it would.

Tracking the boxes kept her too pre-occupied to do a full survey of the planet rising up below her. But as she came in for a landing, she took a brief moment to examine the stretch of land that would be between her and her target.

The terrain looked difficult. Flat enough at least so that she could see how far she’d have to walk to reach the crate, but also full of low-lying spiky plants and small boulders. Jenny didn’t let that slow her down though, collapsing her parachute and using her half-forgotten training from the Machine with ease to pace herself for the hike. A few years had passed since she’d first stepped out of its doors and into the strangeness of the universe, but the information it had granted her had yet to even begin to fade. It also never let her down.

Most of the day had passed before she reached the crate and when she did she didn’t hesitate. She had ensured that the tool for the locks on the outer edges of the crates had been secured within the lining of her jacket before she’d even taken off, and she even had a spare tucked into her boot as a precaution. It only took her a moment to rip open her jacket seam and start opening up the blue crate. She had already wasted too much time playing catch up from the unexpected crash landing; she set to work as quickly as she could.

Jenny had only just finished working her way around all of the edges with the key when she noticed movement out of the corner of her eye. Turning, she was surprised to find another person standing there. The landscape had still been open and flat for the last few miles of her hike, making it difficult for anyone to sneak up on her. Yet this woman had somehow managed to do so.

“You’re not meant to be here,” the woman said with a frown.

“I hear that a lot,” Jenny said as she put her best, most friendly smile on display and shrugged with feigned helplessness. Behind her the crate hummed as its sides disengaged from each other and slid apart, likely revealing its contents for all to see no matter how Jenny tried to stand to block the woman’s view. “Were you looking for something?”

Her smile didn’t seem to have put the other woman at ease. Jenny watched her fingers shift slightly and assessed the likelihood of a weapon being stored in her clothes close to her hand. In this sector, and with the size of that pocket, she could have anything from a pocketknife to a deadly laser finger-pistol. Trying to move slowly and casually, Jenny made sure she had the quick release shielding button in her suit under her thumb and ready to engage. “If you don’t-”

“What?” Jenny asked with a smirk. She relaxed her shoulders, keeping her thumb in position. “Are you going to try and get me out of your way?”

The woman narrowed her eyes. “I might.”

“You’re welcome to try but you’re not likely to succeed. Nobody ever does. Besides, I’ve got more important things to do today, like save a civilisation,” Jenny said earnestly, dropping her voice into a mocking imitation of a confessional whisper. “It’s on my bucket list. I take my bucket list very seriously.”

The woman’s eyes darted up and down, examining Jenny from head to toe. She seemed to linger for a second over Jenny’s hand, still poised to deploy her personal shield, before she made a decision. Relaxing her stance, she held out a hand to shake in the human fashion. “My name is… Kii’seph,” she said, hesitating oddly over her name. “I’m just passing through, trying to avoid the conflict and find a shuttle heading off-world.”

“I’m Jenny,” she replied with a jaunty salute before shaking Kii’seph’s hand and only half-turning back towards the crate so she didn't have to take her eye off Kii’seph. Her cargo was small and looked unharmed by its long fall. Carefully she plucked the device from its protective shell and cradled it as she turned back to face her new companion. “And I think I know where you might find a shuttle port just off to the east of here. It’s the same direction I’m travelling in if you’d like to walk with me?”

It wasn’t unpleasant to have company. The terrain was too monotonous to make hiking alone very interesting, and this way Jenny could ask Kii’seph all kinds of questions about her home planet and the other places she’d been to. Always moving forward, Jenny had crossed into this sector only recently and she eagerly soaked up every detail of what might be ahead of her.

Their easy-going conversation finally petered out as they approached the outer edge of the town which Jenny had noticed during her descent. Small craft lifted off from time to time somewhere in the centre, hovering above the buildings for a few minutes before suddenly zipping up into the atmosphere. Jenny was half-tempted to put Kii’seph’s sudden quiet down to anticipation of her plan to get off-planet, but instinct niggled at her.

There was something else going on here.

“I have to get this cargo to the front line before there’s nothing left out there to save. What are you going to do now, Kii’septh?” Jenny asked as they stepped into the entry check-point. It was fully automated and there was nobody else waiting to enter the town alongside them.

“Claim trinkets like that one,” Kii’septh answered as soon as the computer dinged to authorise their entry, her tone hardening suddenly as she dropped to the ground. Her foot shot out, attempting to sweep Jenny’s legs out from under her, but Jenny twisted and sprung away easily, turning a one-handed cartwheel into a flip that took her across the room in seconds.

Landing near the door in a crouch, Jenny narrowed her eyes and glared. “Well, you won’t get any trinkets from me,” she said as she tucked the device into her back pocket and hit the door release. Ducking through it, she pressed the controls on the other side to close it up behind her and kept low to the ground until it had hissed shut again. Then she immediately shot out the control panel and stood up, brushing her hands clean of dirt with satisfaction.

Kii’seph hadn’t been fast enough. An angry thump on the other side of the door told Jenny she’d reached it only moments too late but although the control panel sparked like it was attempting to receive signals from its counterpoint on the other side, the door stayed shut.

“Let’s not do this again sometime,” Jenny yelled as she thumped on the door once with her fist in response and turned away, laughing. She could hear muffled words from the other side, but she didn’t stick around long enough to understand them.

She had a mission to complete, a deadline to meet, and a civilisation to save. Strapping her weapon back onto place and shifting the device into a more secure inner pocket that could be fastened shut, Jenny turned towards the centre of town and got ready to start running.

*

Jenny waved at Silneh from across the cargo hold, trying not to laugh at her deeply unhappy expression. The storage crew had all spent a little too much time indulging with the local brandy the night before and, even with the ships very dim lighting, Silneh looked like she had some regrets about their choice of evening activity.

Making a mental note to drop by after shift with a headache cure for her newest friend, Jenny turned her attention back to her inventory pad. Almost everything was in the right place, there was only one thing she still needed retrieve from another part of the ship and then this lot would be ready for unloading at their next stop.

Humming to herself, Jenny slipped out of the hold and headed for the secondary storage bays.

Part of the way there, her humming was interrupted by a female voice. “Well, well, well,” the voice said and, smiling, Jenny turned around, only to find herself pausing mid-step.

The woman behind her didn’t look entirely unfamiliar but Jenny couldn’t quite place the face. They hadn’t docked at all in the last few weeks, nor did they typically encounter other ships this far out in the depths of space. It was very unlikely that they’d taken on new crew or passengers whom Jenny hadn’t had a chance to meet yet.

“You’re a sight for sore eyes,” the woman continued as she stalked down the corridor towards Jenny.

Jenny frowned, tensing as she surveyed the corridor around them for potential makeshift weapons. Everything about this woman’s walk screamed danger and Jenny had stopped carrying anything dangerous on her for emergency use once she’d befriended the rest of the crew.Casting around and finding little she could repurpose in the utilitarian passageway, her distraction nevertheless allowed a question to bubble up from the back of her mind.

“That’s an interesting expression, where does it come from?” Jenny asked automatically in her distraction.

The woman halted, her leer replaced with a blank look and a tiny furrow on her forehead. “I have no idea,” the woman said slowly. “You’re the one who taught it to me.”

“I doubt that,” Jenny said, standing her ground. “We don’t know each other.”

“Jenny-,” the woman said.

She reached out with a suddenly distressed expression. Before Jenny could ask who had told the woman her name, they both went flying off their feet as the ship was rocked violently to the side.

“Dammit,” the woman said. “That shouldn’t be happening yet. Jenny, listen to me. My name is Kii’seph and I’m here following the co-ordinates that _you_ gave me. You wanted me to-”

The ship rocked again before Kii’seph could finish speaking. Something about the resonance that ran through the ship sparked something deep in Jenny’s mind, in her knowledge from the Machine.

“That charge- there must be an open circuit in the engine that can’t complete its cycle. Something’s going to blow if nobody fixes it,” Jenny said quickly, shoving past Kii’seph and racing back the way she’d come. If she took a left just past the cargo hold, there was a shortcut that should open up just past the-

Yes, the smaller engine room where the circuit breakers for the entire ship were. It was exactly where she'd have started if she was trying to sabotage the ship.

“I’d ask why you were on this vessel in the first place, but-”

“It was on my bucket list,” Jenny said absently without looking up from the box of cables she’d dived into and begun desperately sorting through. "You've probably never heard of a bucket list."

“… no, you have mentioned that to me before,” Kii’seph replied, wariness in her tone.

Blinking, Jenny stopped seeing the cables in her hands for a moment as she was hit by a rush of memory. How could she have-

“What are you going to use those for?” Kii’seph was asking, seemingly not having noticed Jenny going still.

Clenching her fists, Jenny rocked back on her heels and braced herself to spring up if she had to. She remembered Kii’seph now. “Is this what you do, travel around the universe looking for people and places in trouble just so you can exploit them?” she asked, cold fury in her tone.

Kii’seph looked taken aback. Then her gaze drifted down Jenny’s body, taking in her stance, and she took a physical step back as well. “Not anymore. I- you might say I’m in the process of finding myself a different line of work,” she said slowly.

“This ship is full of my friends. Are you really going to help me, or are you going to get in my way like you tried to do last time?” Jenny asked flatly.

“Help,” Kii’seph replied immediately. “Definitely help. Jenny, I came here to save you.“

“Then prove it,” Jenny said, turning back to her box of cables. It only took her a few more moments to finally sift the right one into view and she gave a triumphant shout as she pulled it free. She noticed Kii’seph’s lost expression as Jenny held the cable aloft and something in her softened despite herself. “Did you used to be a soldier as well?”

Kii’seph blinked, all three of her eyelids closing and opening in slow motion. “Yes, I did. I _used_ to be, Jenny, I promise. I… I already have promised you.”

Jenny examined her earnest expression for a long moment before nodding. “Well, I suppose that’s alright then. Come on now, it’s time for running!”

“What made you change your mind? About becoming a solider, I mean,” Jenny asked some time later as they waited for the detonation to spark just off the hull. Kii’seph was already starting to move away, apologising that she couldn’t stay long, that someone was likely to have missed her already as it was. Even if Jenny could understand that, despite having nobody around to miss her, she somehow couldn’t resist encouraging Kii’seph to linger just a moment longer.

The explosives they’d set to destroy the gravitational magnet which had been disrupting the ship’s engines suddenly went off outside, looking brighter and more brilliant for the briefest of moments than any of the heavily filtered supernovas Jenny had seen. The ships shields sparkled and glowed around the viewing window as tiny debris particles began to rain down on it.

“I met a girl,” Kii’seph answered her quietly as they watched the display together, pressing her shoulder back briefly against Jenny’s before she drew away entirely. “And she was the brightest, most brilliant person I’ve ever known. She was the one who told me I could find another way.”

*

Jenny beamed as she spotted a familiar face in the crowd. It had been awhile since she’d spent long enough in one place to make a proper friend and anyone or even anything familiar was a welcome sight. Ducking her head, she weaved her way through the crowd and took advantage of her human height to slip under arms and alien elbows so she could move easily through the emptier spaces beneath the worst of the crush. Despite that, Kii’seph had already disappeared again by the time she reached the other side of the marketplace.

Trying to shrug off her disappointment, Jenny shouldered her days purchases. Then she made her way into the side tunnels so she could navigate back to her ship’s dock without diving into the crowd once more.

There was nowhere Jenny needed to be. She was between missions, having run out of new planets within a reasonable distance for visiting, and she hadn’t heard of an entire civilisation under threat in more than a year now. Somehow, Jenny seemed to have accidentally stumbled into a quieter section of this particular galaxy. She’d only stopped at all so she could resupply earlier than planned and eavesdrop on gossip before picking a new direction to travel in.

Perhaps she'd be lucky and find Kii’seph hanging around the market again tomorrow. Jenny had at least heard a few interesting tales of a mythical monster lurking in the cities underbelly, but so far she hadn’t been able to find any trace of one. Once she’d dropped her supplies back at her ship, she had been hoping to slip into the deeper, less travelled tunnels, to look for the creature just one last time before she gave up on it completely.

She didn’t make it as far as her ship; someone collided with her as she turned the next corner while deep in thought. Groaning, Jenny pressed a hand to her forehead, trying to breathe through the sharp pain of whacking her skull headfirst into something at full speed.

“You,” a familiar voice hissed.

Without having even shaken off her dazed feeling, Jenny’s hand automatically shot up to grab the wrist in front of her before it could connect. Squinting, she looked at her attacker - and found Kii’seph.

Sucking in a startled breath, Jenny felt herself relaxing into a broad grin. “I found you!”

Despite her pounding head, it still only took dropping Kii’seph’s wrist and immediately needing to block another hit for Jenny to realise there was something wrong. Before she could figure out what was going on though, there was a roar and a hulking shadow appeared. It was so large that it blocked out the light as it rushed at them and Jenny and Kii’seph scattered before it, flinging themselves in opposite directions to try and get out of its path.

The shadow barrelled past Kii’seph, heading directly for Jenny.

Reacting on instinct, she didn’t wait around to try and identify it. Instead, she pulled out the small ultraviolet emitter she’d smuggled onto her ship. Speculating wildly about the rumours she’d heard, Jenny had already set it to send out a wavelength of light which the local atmosphere filtered out - and which the subterranean tunnel network made irrelevant, anyway.

Luckily, the creature recoiled from it, showing only the briefest flashes of bright eyes and teeth and scales before it doubled back. Straight towards Kii’seph.

With a yell, Jenny scrambled to her feet and barrelled after it, jumping on its back - or possibly its head or a very large arm, Jenny wasn’t quite sure. Its shape was immense and hard to fathom, and it writhed beneath her before retreating into the shadows of the tunnels as quickly as it had appeared as she dialled up the strength of her emitter.

On her feet the instant it was gone, Kii’seph turned towards Jenny instead. Her expression was furious, and her hand was visibly twitching towards the same pocket that Jenny had first ever suspected of housing a weapon.

“What was that thing doing here?”

She stepped forward and Jenny stepped back, maintaining a wary distance between them. Kii’seph didn’t stop moving and so neither did Jenny, taking small and careful steps that mirrored Kii’seph’s attempts to circle her.

“I think it might be eating people. So perhaps that, or perhaps it was just defending territory. It’s always hard to be sure. What people have to say about it doesn’t make it sound very intelligent but it does seem to have excellent adaption abilities. None of the city’s usual defences seem to stop it and most people are dismissing the rumours as just that because it’s never caught and it never takes visitors, even though most people in this market city are visitors. Yet still people truly are going missing. I haven't worked how it only targets the local population yet though.”

Kii’seph’s eyes narrowed. “We aren’t from here. It shouldn’t want us.”

“Right place, right time,” Jenny suggested with a cautiously questioning lilt to her voice. Normally Kii’seph was amused by her guessing games, but there was something harder about her today than usual. “There’s an access hatch to the lower levels near here and I was down there yesterday trying to flush it out. Maybe I stepped in something. You probably just happened to get in the way by being near me.”

“If I was just going to be collateral damage, why did you protect me?” Kii’seph asked, leaning in until they were nose to nose and toe to toe. “You could have escaped while that thing attacked.”

Jenny frowned. “Why wouldn’t I protect you? You needed help. That’s what I do, I help people. Besides, maybe it doesn’t mean to be aggressive. It might be grateful that I stopped it. This is only my second attempt to defeat a creature and my first one failed because the creature wasn’t even trying to hurt anyone, it was just biologically incompatible with the nearest lifeforms and didn’t understand why nobody wanted to be friends.”

Kii’seph’s eyes looked a little wild as they darted across Jenny’s face, but whatever she found there didn’t put her at ease. “You- _what_?” she hissed, looking increasingly bewildered and suspicious.

“I suppose you could say it’s the family business,” Jenny continued, tilting her head as she watching Kii’seph equally closely in return. “But I think a better question might just be: why not?”

Kii’seph stared at her for a long time, before eventually spinning on her heel and storming off back down a tunnel that led towards to the marketplace. Jenny followed her at a polite distance and waited until Kii’seph had disappeared into the crowd again, safe from any potential monstrous returns. Then she turned away with a sigh, slipping into the correct tunnel that would take her directly to her ship.

She still needed to see if anything she’d bought at the market had survived being dropped and then trodden all over. If anything had, then she had both purchases to drop off and a creature to find. Jenny tried to ignore the realisation that she didn’t know if she’d ever see Kii’seph again and that she also didn’t know how she felt about that.

Although, twice could have been just a co-incidence… but three times seemed like a good sign.

Even if she did though, she wasn’t sure Kii’seph would want to see her now. Jenny had thought- well, a lot of things, after their last meeting. But none of that seemed to matter to Kii’seph anymore.

*

The terrain was just as stark and memorable as the last time Jenny had hiked across a planet with Kii’seph by her side. Somehow this one seemed more beautiful though. The moons were full and heavy, hanging shining in the night sky and framed by the deep colours of a nebula, enhanced by the alterations made to the atmosphere until it hung bright and swirling across the sky like an unusually constant aurora.

Reminded of why they were there in the first place, Jenny double checked that the countdown she’d set was still ticking along safely within her suit console. In less than an hour they’d need a booster shot to ensure they could continue breathing the altered air and not long after that the atmospheric regulator was going to blow, causing a potentially fatal cascade of new changes in the environment around them.

“We really should have stolen that ship,” Jenny grumbled as she closed the console cover, satisfied that they still had time. Not much, but maybe just enough if they were lucky.

“Too many guards. We’d still have been locked in a holding cell when this thing goes up,” Kii’seph replied flatly for the sixth time. “What we should have done was never get on the shuttle down to the surface in the first place. That’s where we really went wrong.”

Jenny was so focused on making a suitably dismissive noise in the back of her throat that she almost missed Kii’seph’s stumble. Only quick reflexes saved them both as that stumble turned into both of them falling - and dislodging a large rock, that dislodged another, until it seemed like half the hillside was trying to fall away from underneath them.

“Good thing you’ve finally decided to trust me now or we’d both be dead,” Jenny said, panting, once they’d finally scrambled their way to stable ground, taking it in turns to haul the other one to safety when they weren’t able to move quickly enough.

“I decided to trust you long before today,” Kii’seph grumbled in return, hauling herself back to her feet before she’d even caught her breath.

Jenny cocked her head curiously but Kii’seph didn’t pause to elaborate. A quick tug of their still joined hands to encourage Jenny to follow her was all Kii’seph waited long enough to do before she took off. As Jenny kept pace at her heels, she couldn’t stop herself from staring at the back of Kii’seph’s head, watching her long braids bounce as she leapt from fallen log to rock to hillside.

They continued running, sometimes one after the other and sometimes side by side, until they reached a small plateau. As they paused to sip from their water bottles and just breathe as best they could, Jenny’s wrist console went off and they both reached for their booster shots in practiced, synchronised silence.

Kii’seph was staring up the remaining stretch of hillside-turning-into-mountain that lay before them with narrowed eyes when Jenny had finished tucking the shot administers back into her pack with the rest of her gear.

“Have you seen one of these before?” Kii’seph asked suddenly, holding out her wrist. When Jenny replied in the affirmative, Kii’seph sighed and shook her head. “I don’t mean just on my wrist like this is now. Have you seen one used, do you know what it is?”

That made Jenny pause.

“It’s a time travel device called a vortex manipulator,” Kii’seph said, opening it up and showing Jenny the controls. “It’s not gentle but it is effective.”

“What do you mean by not gentle? Does it hurt to travel through time?” Jenny asked, leaning in to peer at it. That didn’t sound right, she would surely have heard at least one complaint from Donna about that if it was true. The vortex manipulator still looked the same as it always did when Jenny examined it, tarnished and worn where it sat in its usual spot around Kii’seph’s wrist. She’d never seen her remove it, not even to sleep.

“Usually, though it can depend on what technology you use. You don’t sound surprised to hear someone talk about time travel,” Kii’seph answered, sounding strange.

When Jenny glanced up, she found Kii’seph looking confused and a little adrift. “The first people I ever met were time travellers,” Jenny said with a careless wave of her hand before giving the device once last scrutinising glare, hoping to avoid the obvious questions when they needed to get moving again. Wrinkling her nose, Jenny tilted her head at the manipulator to try and work out why it was important, but it still looked unremarkable from the new angle.

Shrugging she straightened up.

“Does that mean we’re from different times?” she asked.

Kii’seph nodded silently.

“So when you said you met a girl and she convinced you to stop being a soldier, did you mean me? We’re meeting out of sync, aren’t we? That explains why you were so suspicious, and then so friendly, and then so suspicious again,” Jenny said, only half meaning to ask questions as she adjusted her pack and started pacing, letting her whirling thoughts find their way out of her head with movement.

She never used to pace this much. Restless movement wasn’t Machine approved because it wasted much needed energy reserves, but she’d discovered that it helped her figure new things out.

“That’s why you didn’t expect me to protect you at the Great Under-section Market,” Jenny finished triumphantly, turning back to face Kii’seph.

Only instead of agreeing or looking pleased that Jenny had put the pieces together, Kii’seph frowned. “That was only the second time we’d met,” Kii’seph said, sounding like she thought Jenny was the one not quite understanding.

Grinning now, Jenny walked over and poked Kii’seph in the chest triumphantly. “No it wasn’t,” she disagreed cheerfully. “It was the fifth.”

Something tightened in Kii’seph’s face, making it look like she wanted to argue, but Jenny’s wrist console chimed before she could say anything. Then it began chiming again in urgent succession. Blanching, Jenny fumbled for the off-button.

“We’re wasting time we don’t have. At this rate, we’ll never make it to the top before the cascade effect begins,” she said, even as she turned to start climbing anyway.

It would be very dangerous to still be planetside during the cascade, but she had to at least try.

Kii’seph’s hand on Jenny’s elbow stopped her. “Wait, that’s what I was trying to say. The manipulator can move me through time, yes, but it can also function as a teleport through space. Give me the neutralising agent. We’re close enough that I think I can get an accurate fix on a landing site now, even despite the atmosphere alterations.”

Opening her mouth to argue, it took Jenny a second to process Kii’seph’s words. Another second to fight her knee jerk reaction to put herself between danger and someone she cared about.

“Okay,” she said, handing her entire pack over without anymore questions.

“Thank you,” Kii’seph said with obvious relief.

Then, to Jenny’s surprise, she kissed Jenny on the lips before fiddling with the manipulator on her wrist and disappearing altogether. Leaving Jenny alone, on the side of a cold mountain, to stare up at the moons and wait - and trust.

*

“The planet’s safe but now what?”

“We need to make camp, look for somewhere easily defensible with fresh water if you can find it,” Jenny said, already pulling up the sonar map on her console and projecting it against the nearest boulder so Kii’seph could also see it as she examining the markings that indicated the rise and fall of the landscape around them.

It didn’t take them long to choose a spot. Especially once Kii’seph reminded Jenny that there were no expected threats in the area beyond exploding technology - and that Kii’seph, being from the future, could say with some certainty from her study of the historical record that they were very unlikely to be surprised by unexpected ones.

As soon as Jenny was settled with her bedroll laid out between Kii’seph and their small campfire, Kii’seph turned over and curled her body around her. Jenny was suddenly hyperaware of every point where Kii’seph was touching her, nerves screaming for her attention at the back of knees, the small of her back, and the spot on her neck where she could feel Kii’seph inhaling and exhaling warmth against her skin.

Kii’seph waited a moment, as if giving Jenny a chance to protest the closeness, before sliding a hand tentatively across her waist.

Jenny didn’t hold still like she’d clearly expected her to though. Kii’seph made a surprised noise as Jenny let the weight of her hand pull her backwards, using the momentum to roll herself within Kii’seph’s arms. “Are you trying to stay warm?” she asked with a smirk, searching Kii’seph’s face for some hint of her expression in the dark despite how it was shadowed by Jenny’s body being between her and the firelight.

When she only got a silent nod in answer, Jenny slid one hand up Kii’seph’s collarbone to tuck it behind her neck. Her other, she used to grab Kii’seph’s hand and move it under the hem of Jenny's shirt, sliding it up as she tugged Kii’seph’s head down.

It was easy to find her lips even in the dark. Jenny pulled her closer when she felt Kii’seph finally beginning to smile into the kiss after a long, stunned moment of holding still in her embrace.

“I know much better ways to keep us warm,” Jenny said and murmured easy encouragement when Kii’seph finally began to move with purpose again, seeking skin anywhere she could find it. After all, life could sometimes be short and brutal, but Jenny had always known that the best morale boost came from enjoying the times when it could also be sweet.

*

As soon as it was dark, Jenny pushed the lid off the container she’d stowed away in. She paused only long enough to admire the three suns glowing cold and distant far beyond the glass dome of the facility, before she carefully replaced the container lid and began to sneak down the hall.

The near soundless buzz of her comm device alerted her to an incoming message, but she didn’t stop to check it until she was a few corridors away from her point of ingress. When she did, she smiled.

_I’m waiting for you in the forest chamber and I believe I have something in my possession that you might find useful. I’ll trade it for a kiss. K_


End file.
